


insomniatic (are you this restless too?)

by lovebeyondmeasure



Category: Cormoran Strike Series - Robert Galbraith
Genre: Also Strike is in denial about his feelings, F/M, Pining Cormoran Strike, Pre-Robin Ellacott/Cormoran Strike, as per usual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-08
Updated: 2019-10-08
Packaged: 2020-11-27 20:24:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20954387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovebeyondmeasure/pseuds/lovebeyondmeasure
Summary: He reached over to pick up the mobile, leaving it plugged in on its long cable, intending to just glance at it.But as though he’d summoned her, the name that was lighting up his phone screen wasRobin.





	insomniatic (are you this restless too?)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pools_of_venetianblue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pools_of_venetianblue/gifts).

> Approximately an ice age ago, I reblogged a prompt list of "ways to say I love you" and Linds sent me prompt 16: “It’s okay. I couldn’t sleep anyway.” 
> 
> And here it is. 
> 
> Title cribbed from the 2007 song [Insomniatic by Aly & AJ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N536lLGdbG4).

It was too hot out. Cormoran tugged at his sheet, trying to make himself be comfortable so he could fall asleep, but it was fruitless. He normally would handle this by drinking a bottle or three of whatever he had handy until the room went fuzzy and his brain shut down, but no such luck; he’d already finished the six-pack he’d bought a few days ago. 

It was too hot. 

He sighed, staring up at the ceiling in the dim greyish light. There was a bead of sweat trickling down his temple, and he focused on that, the sensation of it as it slid into his hair. 

Turning, he looked at the time. Nearly 1 am, and he had a client coming in at 8 tomorrow. Brilliant. 

Cormoran lay facing the clock, watching the numbers change at their excruciating pace, and tried to think about anything at all to distract him from the usual creeping thoughts and worries.

He wanted a smoke, but Christ, that involved getting up and lighting it and— fuck, he was nearly out of Bensons, and the closest shop didn’t sell them, he’d have to go down to the next one, and that involved at least 20 minutes’ walk— his stump was aching, the idea of walking was horrendous, and now he was thinking about his stump, about the way it was swollen and chafed, about the way that boy had looked at him, bleeding out on the dirt— 

No, stop. Don’t think about that. Anything else.

He needed a haircut— but then there’s the matter of paying for a haircut, and did he really need one, it was an unnecessary expense— money was tight enough as it was, and he was worried about making this month’s payments—

Wait, no, go back. He could get Ilsa to trim his hair for him, she used to do for Nick, back when he’d had hair, she’d probably do an alright enough job— but she’d want to ask him questions about how things were doing, and he didn’t have anything new to talk about but Robin, and—

Robin, looking at him over a case file, smiling— Robin, waving about a chip as she made her point vigorously, not noticing that Cormoran had stopped arguing and was just watching her face— Robin and the way she— 

No, he scolded himself, stop that too. There’s no thinking about Robin, not right now. 

His phone buzzed just then, and he was grateful for once for the interruption. Anything to distract him from the overwhelming discomfort and looming knowledge of how tired he was going to be in the morning. He reached over to pick up the mobile, leaving it plugged in on its long cable, intending to just glance at it. 

But as though he’d summoned her, the name that was lighting up his phone screen was **Robin**.

“What on earth,” he muttered, squinting at the too-bright screen as he punched in his password. Turning down the brightness, he read:

`Thinking abt Gondola’s case`

That was it. 

Cormoran tried to puzzle out what on earth Robin might have meant by this, when his phone buzzed again, twice in brisk succession.

`Timeline doesn’t line up. Couldn’t have been at home by 9 if he worked til 7.15, the road was being repaved then`

`Wouldve taken 2 hours minimum to get from work to home taking that route`

Cormoran’s eyes refused to focus on the screen properly, due to some combination of brightness and tiredness and age, and he gave up and just hit the little green telephone icon to call her. 

Robin picked up at the tail end of the first ring. “Oh my goodness, did I wake you? It wasn’t that urgent, I’m so sorry!”

“It’s okay,” Cormoran said, his mouth like cotton, voice rough and gummy. “I couldn’t sleep anyway.”

“You should, though,” Robin said, and he could picture her, the way her brow would be furrowed with concern. “You’ve got that early meeting, haven’t you?”

“Don’t remind me,” Cormoran said, then pulled the phone away from his face to cough, clear his throat. “Doesn’t matter, I’ll manage somehow. Tell me about this breakthrough on Gondola?”

He closed his eyes and let Robin’s voice wash over him through the phone, storing the words in his memory to be examined later and simply enjoying the feeling of having her with him. It somehow eased his discomfort to focus on her, the way her voice wrapped around her Northern vowels, the way she spoke faster as she got excited by her findings. 

“—so you see, the timeline would be impossible,” she said, triumphant. “No one else seems to have made a note of the construction delays, which doesn’t make any sense, but there it is.”

She paused, as though waiting for reply, and Cormoran smiled. 

“That’s very good work, Robin, very good work indeed. And I don’t have to ask you to make up a packet presenting all of this, because I know you’ve already done so, and I appreciate that too.”

Eyes still closed, Cormoran pictured the way Robin looked when he told her how good she was at her job; there was a lightness, a bit of a preening satisfaction. The corners of her mouth folded up, not quite a smile but the hint of one, and her eyes went bright and pleased. 

“Thank you,” she said. “It’s nice to be appreciated.”

He made a non-commital noise, then had to ask: “Not that I’m not grateful, Robin, but why are you awake and researching traffic patterns instead of sleeping?”

Robin made a soft, unidentifiable noise, before pausing just long enough for Cormoran to notice it. “I couldn’t sleep either,” she said. “It’s too quiet here. So I finally just gave up. I figured if I’m going to be awake, I might as well do something with my time besides watch the number on the clock change.”

Seeing as how this was precisely what he himself had just been doing, Cormoran felt as though he’d been gently reprimanded. Of course, he thought, there was no way Robin could have _known_ that’s what he had been doing, so she couldn’t have meant it that way; in fact, she had sounded more self-deprecating than anything else. 

“I know what you mean,” he found himself saying instead. “About it being too quiet.”

Again, a soft noise; what Cormoran wouldn’t give to be able to see her, understand her. But of course, that was a dangerous wish. 

“You do?” Robin asked. The tone of their call had changed; where before Robin had been excited, awake, now they were hushed. It felt like it almost wasn’t real, as though it would melt away in the morning; perhaps it was a dream. 

“When you’re used to sleeping beside someone,” he said, letting the words fall easily from his mouth, eyes still closed. “The absence of them next to you becomes a hole. You keep waiting to hear them inhale, but it never comes. You’re just waiting.”

“Yes,” Robin said. “That’s it exactly.”

“I know,” he said. “I almost never had a room to myself, growing up. When I was a kid, Lucy and I shared, and then I shared with Mum, and Shanker, and whoever else we were with at the time.”

Robin was quiet enough that Cormoran wondered if the call had dropped, but then he heard her, breathing softly. He couldn’t seem to stop talking, now, as though the darkness behind his eyelids was the curtained confessional, and Robin was there to deliver him his penance so he could be freed from his burdens. 

“And then in uni, I shared a dorm, and in the military, we barracked together, and then Charlotte, of course…”

Charlotte, of course. 

“She snores, you know,” he said, and Robin laughed a bit, a soft little sound, and he smiled. 

“Matthew talked in his sleep, sometimes,” she said, and she sounded relaxed, now. Sad and tired. “Never a conversation or anything, just words or phrases. Once he sat bolt upright when I got home and announced, ‘peas and carrots,’ just like that, as though it was the most profound thing in the world.”

Cormoran snorted gently, and heard Robin yawn. 

“Christ, it’s late,” she said. “We should really both be asleep.”

“If you could convince my body of that, I’d be much obliged,” he said. “I’ve been trying to sleep for hours, I think, and it’s like the harder I try, the harder it is to actually do.”

“You’re too tense,” Robin said, which seemed ridiculous, because Cormoran felt perfectly relaxed now, with her voice coming in by his ear where he’d pinned his phone between his head and his pillow. It was still plugged in, and thus rather hot in his already-hot room, but he didn’t mind. 

“I’m not tense,” he said after a moment. 

“Of course you are,” Robin said. “You’re always tense.” There was a rustling and a sighing, and Cormoran wondered if he was correct in his guess that Robin had just climbed into her own bed and laid down. 

“I’m not always tense,” he replied. “I don’t know who’s feeding you this information, but I regret to inform you that they’re lying.”

He could hear her smile in her voice. “Are you accusing my eyes of slandering you?”

“I suppose I am,” he said, and it was easy, talking to Robin like this, without her presence to distract him, the glint of her hair, the smell of her perfume. She was just a voice in his ear, whispering to him. 

“How dare you,” she said, and he couldn’t help the smile that slid onto his face. “That’s a very serious accusation. I’ll have you know that at my last appointment my optometrist said my vision was excellent.”

“I’m sorry to inform you that you need to find a new one, because I am not always tense, and you eyes are sorely mistaken,” he said back.

Robin sighed, a contented sound. “If you say so,” she said in the tolerant voice of someone humoring a child. “I’ll be sure to be on the lookout for the next time you’re relaxed.

“I’m relaxed right now,” Cormoran said, because he was too relaxed to watch his own mouth. “You just can’t see me.”

“No,” Robin said, “I can’t.”

Cormoran decided that he must be imagining the note of regret, or maybe longing, that he thought he heard. It couldn’t be that, of course. 

“Please rest assured that I am very relaxed,” he said, not wanting to let the silence draw out too long. 

“I would love to rest,” Robin said, her usual good humor back in her voice. They were both the next thing to whispering, and it felt so— intimate. So quiet, so close, as though they were right beside each other. “Alas, my body refuses to partake of this rest of which you speak.”

There was silence, as Cormoran tried to think of what to say, and his own breathing sounded loud to his ears. 

“I ought to let you go,” Robin said finally. “I’m sorry to have bothered you at this hour, honestly, I don’t know what was I thinking—”

“No,” Cormoran said immediately, not wanting the call to end. Not wanting to be left alone with his thoughts, not wanting to lose the feeling of closeness he had in that moment. “Don’t be sorry, I was the one who called you, after all.”

“That’s true,” Robin said, pacified. “Still, I ought to hang up so we can both try to sleep.”

“Don’t hang up,” Cormoran said impulsively. “Stay on the line. This way it won’t be so quiet, and maybe we’ll both be able to get some rest.”

“Are you sure?” Robin asked, and her hesitancy made Cormoran feel like a fool, as though he’d misunderstood everything, as though he’d crossed a line somewhere and hadn’t noticed, had made her uncomfortable or pressured her or— 

She went on, “I don’t want you to put yourself out for me.”

“No, not at all,” Cormoran said, modulating his tone to not sound so relieved, so eager. He liked this, the way they were easy and hushed and gentle. He’d had precious little of any of that, in his life. “It’s nice. I’m relaxed now.”

Robin yawned again. “I am too,” she said, sounding sleepy. “I don’t know what it is about you that makes me feel so safe, but you do.”

Cormoran took that moment, the moment in which she said those words, and turned it into a memory which he tucked into his brain to be revisited at some later date, when he needed it. It was a good moment. 

“I’m glad,” he said, soft and low. 

“I think I might actually fall asleep soon,” she said, in a confiding tone. “Sorry if I’m not interesting to talk to now.”

Cormoran yawned, surprising himself. “I might fall asleep too,” he murmured. 

“That’s good.”

“Yeah.”

The sound of Robin’s breathing was even, like the ocean’s waves, and with his phone pressed against his sweaty face, Cormoran let it lull him finally into sleep.


End file.
